End of Project - A Self Portrait a Day
This is a wrap up and review of my project, a self portrait drawing a day for 20 days. What did I learn? Did my drawings improve?
I missed five days, so only fifteen drawings and not twenty.
Today I got all the drawings out and put them up on the wall side by side. It's interesting how much the standard varies. Overall I can see an improvement from the first few to the last few, which is good news, but the progression hasn't been a straight line. Quality wise, they zig zag up and down.
As you go through the series, the proportions get generally better, as first I dropped the drawing grid then the measuring. It seems counter intuitive, but the drawings tell that story pretty clearly. I think I may put some measurement back in, but no more than the height and width and the head I think, anything more seems to introduce distortions due to bad measuring.
Looking at the proportions of the human head has been a big help. Whether the right brain drawing exercises have helped or not I don't know, it's a very hard thing to define. I still find the idea very interesting though, and my intuition tells me that there's something in it, so I plan to continue with some experiments and practice along those lines.
Which brings me neatly to the main point. the conclusion that this project has brought me to is that all I need to do to get better is practice. Seems pretty obvious huh? But sometimes when I do two or three bad ones in a row I can find myself doubting it, wondering if there's some secret trick I haven't learned yet. That's bollocks of course, and just a product of weak moments. If you want to get better at drawing, in fact pretty much anything, all you have to do is practice.
It's about training your eye, or more correctly your brain, to observe things as they actually are, and not allow yourself to scan quickly over something and assume you've seen it properly. Chances are, unless you've spent some time quieting your inner chatter and just sitting and looking, that you haven't seen properly at all. I think this has a much greater bearing on the quality of the work produced than techniques or materials. You can read all the learn-to-draw books you like, try all the materials and techniques you like, but at the end of the day you have to learn to see properly, and the only way to get that is to practice. Since I want to learn fast, I need to practice a lot. Simple really.
So I don't go off the boil, I've set myself to draw something every day, no matter how simple. Some of them will be portraits, self portraits, some just a little sketch of something lying around or a copy of an old master drawing, but as long as I draw something every day I'll get better every day. Every drawing will train my eye a little more, regardless of the subject.
Posted 26th December 2005
